Author’s Note: It is about time to put the manuscript to bed for the search for the District Stones. It was a grand adventure, and included history both known and unknown. It was a minor epic worth living amid urban elegance and squalor, the worlds of the living and the dead. I will have the complete manuscript on the website shortly.

– Vic

SE9- Third Time the Charm!

The hunt ended, for me, with the rented powerboat passage across the vast and slowly moving Potomac River.

Jon-Without an H and I were determined to finish off the hunt for the 40 Stones with a triumphant passage across the great river, and a last visit to the SE9 stone. That had defeated me twice, both with Argo on foot and by kayak. A detailed de-briefing detailed the last attempts, the weakness and failure. I had pictures of the goal and objective. The stone was well defined and protected by the DAR-provided green iron fence. Although it had been moved from the original location once, it seemed a logical and achievable goal.

Jon-without and I had been careful to complete the circuit. We had found the real North Stone, and the two located in housing project areas on the SE quadrant. There was great satisfaction in those attempts, and frank discussion about finding the Maryland Department of Public Works to find the NE Stone that had been removed and was allegedly safely in the custody of the Department. We were looking at closure, and the completion of the search.

We were both still working, and that meant a Saturday for the last and most audacious attempt to close the project. A look back at the land approach on foot was a useful start. It meant taking the car to public land in the District, just a mile SE of the Stone in the Impound Lot, and the little garden with no stones that held the bodies of the Nazis executed by Mr. Hoover of the FBI. Our attempt by rented paddle boats from National Harbor had deposited us in one of the wrong necks of the vast grey and brown river.

The feeing of the slow but insistent current was enough to raise a sense of unease. The look of the banks was imposing- not the landscape on which to beach the boat and plunge into the vegetation that had not been swept away. So, third times the charm, and we thought we had thought it through.

I don’t think I have addressed the power of the mighty Potomac in a manner that really conveys its power. Stepping ashore, or even trying to traverse part of it is a real challenge. If you are expecting a park-like serenity, you will not find it in the great drain from the hills inland. With rain comes enormous scouring energy to sweep trash from the urban sprawl that attends the river’s downward course. The debris tangles in the undergrowth in an astonishing mess that remains as the river lowers with the passing of the rain.

I will cut to the chase on this and not overwhelm you with data. There is an elegance to the crossing, the sight of the Wilson Bridge across the water downstream, the things floating around you, the absence of human contact in the midst of all that human habitation. It is quite an imposing experience, as is the beaching, and hop to the mud that covers the boots. The trash scattered up to what had been the high-water mark. Mostly plastic bottles, but with some other objects protruding from the muck that prudence would suggest we avoid.

I will not tell you about crossing the highwater mark to explore the thicket of brush and tree for the way forward that seemed so reasonable on the map, or from the satellite pictures that suggested the shore would be more inviting.

I will leave you with the memorable moment in which we gave up, muck sucking on the boots, and the humid moist air beginning to join with sweat flooding down the back of a sweatshirt.

My last words to SE9, within a couple dozen feet, were of greetings and farewell. My advice to others who wish to visit, wait for a period of dry weather. I think I expressed it more passionately at the time, but from the look on Jon’s face, the decision to end the hunt was unanimous.

The passage back to Alexandria was routine, as was the walk up to the Union Street Public House for a couple welcome cocktails. Looking back toward the river, we felt a certain perverse sense of accomplishment. I took a sip of vodka tonic and thought about the Stones. All of them. And the men who put them there, in a world long ago.

“You know what I wanted to do when we found it?” I asked Jon.

He nodded, probably thinking of the same appropriate act. It might have been a little disrespectful, but it certainly would have felt right. I imagine Ellicott and Banniker’s boys did the same thing. And more than once.

Boundary stone SE 9, the one furthest south in the current District of Columbia. In 1907 it was essentially IN the Potomac River. The picture is not mine, Damnit.

Copyright 2020 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com